Aurora Ferrheim, III's Story

Proceed with active scans. Hold position.

Aurora commanded, directing the now-emerging fleet with clear instructions broadcast directly to the ears of her generation.

We show marginal anomalies, residual traces of void relics and other arcane energies detected. Confirming sources...

trailed off a voice from the engineering console of The Hyacinth, a Saracen-class hybrid born to the fleet just over 4 cycles prior. Now the focal point of the Hegelian legacy, The Hyacinth gleamed with an eery iridescence as radiation from the nearby stars scattered across her hull.

Deploy the Seekers.

she interrupted, eager to make her journey to this realm a success.

On queue, a dazzling series of spiraling fountains of light emerged a few dozen kilometers ahead of the leading edge of Hegelian ships. Flickering and arcing with energy before evaporating into empty space, these brilliant bursts gave way to clusters of Tacitus-class destroyers, each proudly emblazoned with the Hegelian Empire's Coat of Arms.

Forward they began, their Q-drives humming into the silence of space.

Farrheim smiled, his neural link igniting with data from this new realm. It'd been too long since he'd tasted the vapor of the void, but his journey had his senses honed in on the precious substance.

Prepare for sublight jump, deploy drones at 500 kilometers. Execute sequence, on my mark.

he prepared, signaling to the vessel that they'd be going in first.

The iridescent glimmer across the hull began to ripple into a glow as the energetic taps ramped up, drawing on the space around them to prepare the slipstream for their travel into the system.

It was supposed to be a generic reconnaissance deployment for Admiral Nash and the Aschen Empires Reverence II class planetary assault carrier and her nameplate identified her as the Absolution.

The thirty kilometer long ship winked suddenly into the system with a brief spatial tear, and a brilliant flash of white light. She was escorted by about a dozen capital ships, which were glimmers compared to the size of this mammoth Aschen warship.

Settling into position inside the void, Admiral Nash looked at a mostly empty holographic display, save for what appeared to be sensor readings on the far side of the system.

"Unidentified vessels detected, designs and markings have no matches in all existing databases." EVE chimed in, her voice echoing through the interior of the CIC.

Admiral Nash grimaced, and then gave her orders.

"Order the fleet to move into defensive position, set condition yellow, and send hostile challenge and ID. Push the reply up onto the speakers." Nash ordered.

The flickering hologram of Eve offered a slight nod, before broadcasting with a monotone voice across several frequencies in a basic mathematical language that could be easily translated.

"Attention unidentified vessels, this is the Absolution. Please identify yourselves at once."

Incoming supercapital. The locals have arrived, madam.

Aurora could already feel them, the cluster of grit which had begun to scrape against her spiderweb of sensory nodes. She could smell the iron in their hulls, and she relished in the ochre burn which reminded her so deeply of her mission.

Initiate jamming, all systems status red.

she responded, immediately resulting in the emission of a wide-range band of radiation from the fleet's outermost vessels being blasted in a conical section towards the cluster of ships ahead of them. As the beams arrived upon their targets, they began to modulate and narrow towards any reflection or energetic emission, honing in on any potentially sensitive sensors or communication devices.

She glanced towards the deploying ships, which had already begun to make their slipstream towards their target. She nodded before looking over towards engineering, expecting a readout of results at any time.

"Admiral, I am detecting some form of radiation that seems to be focusing on points where sensor arrays are located on this ship, they appear to be trying to jam our sensors." Eve reported as the cone of radiation incoming from the alien fleet was highlighted.

Nash leaned forward and inspected the holographic readout.

"Bring our ships into defensive formation alpha, move our aegis cruisers into aegis field position. Move the missile carriers out of their weapons and sensor range. Power to shields and weapons."

Nash paused for a moment, before she turned to her executive officer.

"All hands, action stations."

Alarms began to blare, and the white CIC lighting shifted to a deep red. The holographic projection flickered into a tactical readout, displaying shield strength, and damage statistics across the entire ship, as well as linking the command systems of all escort ships through a tight band subspace frequency that could not be jammed.

The aschen vessel lurched forward, a milky white ribbon of light coalesced into a bubble around the vessel and began to easily disperse the cone of radiation around it.

A similar ribbon of light coalesced around the ships escorts as they moved into a tight formation around the Absolution.

A second message went out in the same mathematical language, as shields would block any attempts to further probe the aschen vessels with a staticky band of interference.

"Unidentified vessels, This is a military vessel aligned with the United Aschen Empire. Your actions are currently being construed as hostile, disengage at once or we will be forced to respond."

Target has engaged active shielding, giving us a lock.

the tactical officer reported with a smile. He had enjoyed the pleasure of activating the frame relay once before, a spectacle not many generations of Hegelians had the privilege of experiencing. The prospect of getting to use it again was tantalizing.

Let's probe their network,

Aurora said, rising to her feet. The more information about this new universe she could gather now, the faster she'd be able to secure her objective and move on to the next.

The millions of Hegelian ships which now dominated the region had apparently attracted the attention of a well-armed civilization, but one unfamiliar to her or The Hyacinth's genetically-encoded archives.

Charge status for Frame Relay?

she finished, injecting another order into Engineering's queue.

Fortunately, her born-to-fit crew were already synchronized with her intent, and had already placed the response on top of the stack.

Frame Relay ready for naught-point-five timedrag. 12 candidates for void recovery, with three distinct galaxies reporting linkages to the target. Satellite fleet secured, we have The Harrfeldt holding naught-point-two gamma five.

Aurora smiled, walking forward on the overlook towards the hundred-meter display ahead of them. She waited silently, staring down her soon-to-be prey through the filtered optics of her symbiotic host.

Staring at the display, these Xenos didn't back down, and with a sidelong glance to Eve, and then her tactical officer she spoke up.

"Any replies?"

The Tactical officer shook his head. "Nothing, Admiral."

At that moment EVEs voice interrupted the train of thought.

"Unidentified vessels designs, markings, and patterns have been logged for further analysis, however, their hostile intent is clear, and we are not equipped for protracted engagement with forces where strength and disposition are unknown to us." The AI advised.

"We should jump to a more advantageous position, and signal the fleet." Eve added.

Admiral Nash nodded in agreement. She would have to report this encounter to Admiral Hanley, and Chairman Inviere. From there she could make the fleet aware of what she found.

"Secondary FTL is spooled, and escort ships have synchronized for jump" Eve reported.

Running a hand through her hair, Leia Nash opted to give her next order.

"Lock ftl coordinates for the Tal'dor system." Nash ordered.

"Jump on my mark... Mark."

The small contingent of Aschen vessels would abruptly, and suddenly disappear in the same wink of light, and spatial energies that they appeared in, retreating from the field.

The wonderful thing about aschen FTL was that it acted nearly instantaneous.

The Absolution flickered into high orbit, an iff exchange was made, and the escorting ships quickly settled into position.

"IDF actual, this is Absolution Actual. Admiral Hanley, requesting secure channel..."

The glimmer of light splashed across Aurora's eyes, dancing and flickering into stardust before vanishing entirely. A rude exit, she thought to herself.

The tactical officer slumped ever-so-slightly. His fingers cascaded across the console, tracking the signature as it passed through the warp field. He began to speak up, offering to send a fleet in pursuit, but was interrupted by Aurora.

Let them fly. We have work to do.

she pre-empted, turning her attention to the star system before her. Reports were filtering in as the fleet's sensors calibrated, adjusting more and more to the local physics with every moment.

Plot a course across all twelve candidates, closest first then ranked by probability. Let's move on.

Her orders were loud and clear, but the fleet already knew the plan and had already begun to fan out across the region.

...

"Why don't you take the rest of your fleet, Admiral Nash. Return to the sector, pacify the hostile resistance you encountered, and complete your mission?" Admiral Hanley inquired over the holographic feed.

"Well, we don't know what kind of strength, and disposition they have; if we want to secure the sector, I need the assistance of at least one other fleet." Admiral Nash rebuked, as she shifted her stance at the console, pursing her lips.

"EVE reported the vessels are organic in nature, why don't you use Thalaron weapons to take them out?" Hanley asked, staring down at Admiral Nash from the large view-screen at the far end of the CIC.

"Admiral..." Nash tried to argue.

"Ad Victoriam, Admiral Nash." Hanley added before she terminated the link, providing EVE with a sequence of orders.

"Registering new orders, Admiral Nash, you've been instructed by command to return to the system with the fleet, pacify any local resistance, and continue surveying."

Grimacing, the Admiral turned to her XO.

"Spool the drives, lock in coordinates to the system we just left... Signal the fleet, and go to action stations.."

Twenty Minutes Later...

On the far end of the star system, there was another spatial wink against the backdrop of space. The Reverence II 'Absolution' appeared again, this time with a second Planetary Assault Carrier; the Reverence II 'Bloodied Spirit' along with a third capital ship, this one bearing a much different design from the bulbous Reverence class.

The Imperious class Command Carrier Athos, and the Iconoclast Class Battleships, Inomine Veritas, The Righteous Endeavor, and the Solar Wyvern.

Taking up defensive positions alongside the Absolution, the Aschen fleet began to advance slowly, as additional vessels began to jump into position. Specifically the Hastati class cruisers Bum Rush, and Flash of Steel which took up defensive positions roughly 1,500 kilometers above the Absolution's bow.

Hundreds of Aschen warships flickered into the playing field, from the 1.5 Kilometer long Hastati class, to the 500 meter Gemino, and Picon class frigates.

Each Aschen warship was armed to the teeth, jumping in with weapons at the ready, shields hot, and moving into defensive formation.

Four Aegis class cruisers took up positions in a rough diamond shape around the entire fleet formation, their Aegis field generators beginning to charge to provide fleet wide ECW, and shield defense.

Through it all, Admiral Nash checked the readouts. EVE reported that all of the ships had checked in. Four thousand six hundred combat capable Aschen warships moved into a capital phalanx position, spaced out far enough to provide overlapping fields of fire, but also far enough that Area denial weapons would have little effect.

"We have targeting solutions for all thunderbolt missiles. Thalaron warheads are being loaded into the missiles now, and they should be ready to deploy in one millicenton."

Admiral Nash grinned slightly, the use of Thalaron radiation would tear the organic vessels down at the molecular level, poisoning them and slowly turning the organic components to ash.

"Tricobalt Torpedoes in the tubes, and ready to fire!" Another tactical officer called out.

With the assembled fleet in position, and peacocking a show of force, Admiral Nash prepared to carry out her objective.

"Let's get Prowlers into the void and start taking pictures, we'll finish our survey and get out of here. All vessels keep your shields up! Do not fire unless fired upon!"

Licking her lips the Admiral continued.

"If they open fire; light them up!"

They've returned, with friends.

barked the tactical officer. The main display was glittering with data as the Aschen fleet spread out across the space before them.

Aurora turned her attention from the engineering data, which she had been carefully perusing for the past twenty minutes, gaining more knowledge about this universe by the moment. Course calculation was at 20%, given them just over another 90 minutes until a final solution was found. She looked up at the show of force before her, a familiar occasion with every expansion of the Hegelian Empire.

All fleet, hold solution. Prepare Standard for Broadcast.

The sheen of iridescence glittered in the dim, distant sunlight, extending at first to a few lithely tendrils before fanning out across a few kilometers from the closely-arranged ships. These translucent tentacles began to curl and wrap themselves around one another, merging into a nest of faint, transitory fields.

The star in the distance seemed to dim, almost as if occluded by some unknown debris field. Surely the debris scattered through this system hadn't vaporized already; what was going on?

Aurora stood, stern-faced, on the balcony overlooking her symbiote's command centre as the small fleet before her entered its formation. A new era, complete with new resources including the positive confirmation of void energy, and yet another smudge to remove from the Hegelian Empire.

Three Hecatoncheires class drone carriers took up position near the Bloodied Spirit, large bay doors opening up on the ventral sides of these dagger shaped vessels.

Hundreds of thousands of spherical Furie class drones poured from the bellies of these vessels, swarming around the Bloodied Spirit.

Admiral Nash resolved herself, steeling her mind for what was inevitably going to come next. One of the Absolution's bay doors opened up, but from the perspective of the Hegelians, nothing would seem to emerge. However that was not the case. About a dozen Prowler type stealth reconnaissance craft darted from the belly of the ship. Their Obscura Mk II Phased stealth systems placed each craft slightly out of phase, which made them undetectable to all those who did not possess transphasic capable scanners.

Armored panels retracted all along the Absolution, exposing thousands of dual-barreled Turbodisruptor cannons, each capable of delivering a nadion pulse within a plasma envelope, which delivered the equivalent of roughly 14.6 Megatons of TNT with each discharge. This was the staple of the Aschen Empire, and it was these weapons that felled countless ships in battle.

"Fleet reports Action ready." The XO reported.

Nash nodded, before she picked up the intercom, broadcasting a channel to the entire Aschen fleet.

"Men and women of the fleet! This is the Admiral! This system is currently being contested by a civilization we have not encountered before. Their ships are alien to us, we know not either their power, or their disposition. But one thing is for certain! We are the men and women of the Imperial Aschen Navy! Our warships are second to none! And what do we do with aliens we have not discovered? We suffer not the alien to live!"

She took a breath, before she cried out into the receiver.

"Ad Victoriam!"

Hanging up the reciever, the lighting of the CIC grew dim, and the Admiral watched her display.

"Bring us about, three degrees, move position one nine seven carom two one three, twenty degrees to port, ten degrees to down-pitch. Speed, twenty one." Nash ordered, as the helm officers slid their control levers forward.

The Reverence II began to slip forward, it's mammoth plasmic fusion engines igniting in the aft section with a brilliant dark blue glow, the Bloodied Spirit began to follow.

"Admiral, we have a targeting solution." EVE reported.

Nash nodded. "Let them make the first move, it will make it all the easier to justify their extermination."

Broadcast Standard.

Aurora punctuated, triggering the emission of a powerful burst of radio waves, spread out across the intergalactic band.



The beacon ended as abruptly as it had started, the starburst-scale broadcast burning out a number of unshielded sensors within the system. These distant pops weren't entirely unnoticed by The Hyacinth, but they faded into the databanks as Aschen ships maneuvered into offensive positions.

Ready neutron batteries, configuration Beta Three.

she calmly uttered, but of course the batteries were already glowing with the electromagnetic charge being drawn in from the space around them.

Capabilities analyzed, madam. Physics in standard configuration for this class of Universe, we have confirmation of vector potential.

the officer at the tactical console reported.

Aurora smiled, knowing this old dance wouldn't display the full capabilities of her arsenal, but through a useful demonstration of force she might yet draw out some worthy challenger.

The Aschen had once chance to submit, and this was it.

The message brought some confusion to the CIC of the Absolution, a few murmers in Anquietas was a sure sign of their confusion.

Admiral Nash tugged at the lapel of her uniform to smooth the crease down as the XO shook his head.

"Consumption fee? Are they demanding tribute?" The man asked, turning his attention to the console. The hardened sensors of the aschen ships were easily capable of handling the excess energy, and the longer this challenge grew the more they learned.

Now was not the time for posturing, now was the time to gather more information.

"Push a reply out." Nash ordered, she had to buy time for the prowlers to complete the mission.

"Hegalia Imperium, this is the United Aschen Empire warship Absolution, we would comply with your demands but request clarification on this 'consumption fee'"

Ending the transmission, she turned to her XO.

"Status on the Thalaron warheads, and the singularity driver?" She asked.

"Five centons, thalaron warheads will be ready in five centons."

Briefly Nash turned to Eve.

"Their weapons appear to be neutron based, based on preliminary analysis, I have calibrated shields, and have a sixty percent confidence that our shields will be able to resist their weapons fire. We are still outnumbered, but analysis indicates our vessels will be able to withstand their weapons fire with relatively little damage."

Hundreds of battles, wars with dozens of different civilizations all lead to this moment, the aschen warship, both feared and envied. Matched by few.

These aliens were charging fourth, poised to kick a hornets nest. Nash grit her teeth, these Xenos were arrogant. But it had been decades since a reverence was truly pushed. The battle of the razorbacks in galactic war one briefly crossed her mind.

Fire.

Aurora had no patience for diplomatic games; she would take what was rightfully hers. With one word, two of the outermost cruisers hurled a small burst of shielded neutron torpedoes, each ship's salvos arcing down and out before crossing paths and careening into the trajectory of the now-moving The Absolution.

These neutron torpedoes, contained by a shell of iridium plasma, each contained a small moon's worth of mass, nestled tightly into a bundle of nearly-pure neutronium which could tear through the hulls of a handful of ships before their kinetic energy dissipated. The ships mysteriously seemed to experience no recoil, despite the energies involved.

The first five torpedoes headed directly towards the point where The Absolution's superstructure would be, aiming for the center of mass with a short lead given the relative speed of the supercapital. However, the remaining three scattered to port, seemingly smattered across a subset of the smaller targets.

Transmit livelink data, priority alpha.

she closed, ensuring the cross-link between all Hegelian vessels in the system as her fleet held position, seemingly unthreatened by the armada of capital ships before them.

"Alien vessels have opened fire." Eve reported in a monotone voice. Nash grasped the console for a moment as she braced for impact, and the torpedoes careened on course but would be met with unexpected results.

The shields of the massive vessel flared brightly at the impact, stripping nearly all of the shell's kinetic energy from it as it transited from field to hull, which made it's final impact against a reinforced kanvium Hull that had been rated for kinetic energy far beyond that which the torpedoes could deliver.

Metal rippled, and turned to a liquid like state; dispersing the remaining kinetic energy on the subatomic level across the entire hull plate, and what remained of the projectile richoched harmlessly away from the hull of the vessel as it moved forward.

The jolt of the impact was felt deeply into the CIC of the Reverence, and Nash was quick to order they return fire.

The aschen counterattack came in two stages, the first was hundreds of thunderbolt missiles shot fourth from armored silos all along the dorsal superstructure.

These missiles cleared roughly a hundred and fifty kilometers from the Absolution before they disappeared, winking out in a similar manner that the ships appeared, and disappeared.

The second stage was the direct-fire stage, as the Reverence II banked slightly to Port, angling it's pitch downards, and exposing one thousand five hundred individual Turbodisruptor emplacements along it's armored hull. They began to open fire in a sequential salvo that delivered a withering hail of brilliant green streaks of energy careening towards the Hegelian formation, each packing enough of a punch to flatten entire cities. But given the ordinance that was just leveled against the Absolution, Nash figured the Turbodisruptor salvo would serve to be little more than a distraction.

A distraction from the hundreds of thunderbolt missiles that flickered into existence amidst the formation of Hegelian ships, detonating into hundreds of thousands of smaller, individual warheads that spread out in all directions.

The Thalaron warheads detonated in flashes of sickening green, delivering massive pulses of radiation that would destroy organic matter on the molecular level, excellent for use against organic targets, or clearing the crews from ships. Shielding and armor would prove useless against the Thalaron energy, as the flashes of green spread out in all directions.

Mixed among the predominately thalaron ordinance was tricobalt warheads, which tore gaping maws into subspace with each detonation, threatening to rend the very fabric of space asunder amidst the Hegelian fleet.

Through it all, EVE advised that primary shields were reduced to ninety five percent, and one of the torpedoes had critically damaged an escorting Triarii class cruiser.

Leaning forward, Nash gripped the console. The Reverence II did not stop firing. It's dazzling display of green concealed the three school bus sized ferric-tungsten slugs fired from the Athos, which were targeted to intersect the gun batteries of the Hyacinth.

In a glimmer of light, the slipstream collapsed directly off the port bow of The Absolution, dropping the secondary fleet a few hundred meters from the supercapital, which had begun a turn into their direction. Ten thousand drones proceeded ahead in a tidal wave of rippling particulate, the smaller and more personally-sized vehicles pouring past the Absolution's upper decks in a storm of unexpected hellfire.

Beams of charged plasma cut across The Absolution's shielded superstructure, hundreds landing in unison as the drones accelerated out and away, each beam cutting in for half a second or so before the drone passed by and moved on to the bevy of smaller ships which they could more appropriately engage. Lights scattered and spread as the beams danced between the vessels, with return fire already dropping a few dozen of the less-protected drones.

Following the drones came the 64 torpedoes released during slipstream, slamming into The Absolution in unison over the course of the 1.5 second spread that they'd been released on in the first place. Aleksander smiled, eager to see that the fleet had left the system only to return with more friends — giving him a target-rich environment in which to engage.

The elite secondary fleet of battlecruisers accelerated from slipstream exit into an immediate overtake maneuver, the capital-class ships easily turning faster than the flagrantly-displayed supercapital. Their dorsal batteries held their fire, reserving their target designation for the next phase of the attack run, but nearly every ship in the secondary fleet now released a torrential outpouring of hundreds of self-targeting antimatter warheads.

Mass compensators detected, madam. They've entered the third age!

gravitometrics reported.

Aurora had already processed the enemy fleet's response by that time, smiling as she outstretched her hand towards them. No additional vessels in the fleet opened fire, but the glowing tendrils surrounding them hummed in unison.

Utter silence accompanied the explosions, warheads cascading into the field as their concussive impacts shook the hulls of the Hegalian Fleet. The lack of sound was normal for space, but sensors showed minimal radiation being emitted from the explosions, mostly limited to the visible spectrum with a smattering of infrared. Around them, the pale glowing field seemingly vanished, but quickly closed back in to fill the vacuum left by the matter which had just been voided.

But behind the cloaking salvo of missiles came the excruciating pain of direct-fire disruptors, which cut through the mysterious field effortlessly to slam into the hulls of The Hyacinth and a number of the other nearby supercapitals. The screams of a dozen ships fueled Aurora's bloodlust as their ill-adapted crystalline structure absorbed the heat and began to crackle and furl along the surface. Long, jagged black scorch marks scarred the otherwise pristine silver sheen as the Hegalian Ships began to veer away from the onslaught.

But Aurora was just beginning. With a deadened stare, she closed her fist and the remaining two torpedoes arced back in towards the exposed underbelly of The Absolution. The tactical officer glanced back at her for a moment, but the next moves were clear.

Some would say to jump this close to an Aschen fleet formation was suicide, but to jump in and among it was even worse, as the Hegelian vessels were now within weapons range of the entire Aschen formation of ships.

EVE continued to calculate all possible positions in real time, as the second fleet jumped amidst the Aschen fleet formation. Ten thousand drones were met with a thick orange wall of flak. The flak suppression field spit fire in all directions, bathing the Absolution, and the nearby Aegis cruisers in a glow of bright orange, as the oncoming drones would be torn asunder by a thick soup of incoming fire before they got within a hundred meters of the Aschen Supercarrier.

Their incoming ordinance flared brightly, but negligibly against the Absolution's shields, which dissipated the charged plasma in a ripple outwards along the milky energy of the ship's shields. Which stood like a sentinel against the incoming drones, and the Reverence II's hull.

That wasn't all, as Aleksander's ship, the Harrfeldt was now close enough to be engaged by the trio of Aschen Iconoclast Class Battleships, thirty billion tons, and five point six kilometers in length. The Inomine Veritas, the Sanctis Legate, and the Solar Wyvern moved in a delta pattern formation, turning on their axis about ten kilometers above the Hegelian formation of battlecruisers.

Their eight, three-barreled super MAC batteries hurled ten-thousand ton ferric-tungsten slugs at near relativistic velocities, each slug careening towards the battlecruiser with enough kinetic energy to punch clean through their superstructure. With three battleships concentrating their fire, the Harrfeldt had to contend with a salvo of no less than seventy two of these slugs converged on what the Aschen identified as the lead battlecruiser that was overtaking the Reverence II. Turbodisruptor salvos from the Iconoclast withered away at the remaining battlecruiser formations in the form of dazzling green bolts that did not let up.

Turbodisruptor salvos didn't just come from the Battleships, but every other Aschen ship in the formation withered away with unrelenting turbodisruptor salvos, flashes of green streaked back and fourth at each of Aleksander's battlecruisers, in addition to Ajax missiles carrying thirty gigaton quantum plasmid warheads, which detonated in a brilliant flash of white, vaporizing anything within thousands of kilometers caught within their explosion.

The incoming Antimatter warheads sailed fourth, but only a handful would find it's target amid the soup of Flak from the Aegis cruisers, but also amidst the intense ECM Jamming, chaff, and electronic countermeasures that surged fourth from the formation of Aegis cruisers. Dummy-Targets, and high-energy drones would cause the antimatter warheads to veer wildly off course, detonating harmlessly in space.

One struck a Hastati cruiser, causing it's shields to boil away in a brilliant display of multicolored light, carving a deep gouge into it's superstructure. A second one veered into a Hera class fleet tender, engulfing it in an Antimatter explosion. Another one struck a cluster of drones, consuming them.

Several struck the Absolution, but it's shields flared defiantly against the onslaught, and absolutely refused to collapse.

Admiral Nash had nearly been thrown from her console in the last impact, but from what she could tell, the Aschen fleet was holding it's own.


The Bloodied Spirit, the second Reverence II Class Planetary Assault Carrier which seemingly, had largely been ignored during this engagement, her Commander, Commander Ronson clutched his own console, before he called an order to make a Danger-close jump in the formation of Hegelian Ships.

He relayed the orders to EVE, whom coordinated a small task force of Hastati cruisers, Punisher class Battleships, and a handful of Gemenon, and Sagittaron class Battlecruisers to jump with the Bloodied Spirit.

With FTL drives Synchronized, the Bloodied Spirit executed it's FTL jump, going directly for the throat of the enemy formation.

The Bloodied Spirit winked out of existence, along with a dozen Aschen vessels.